Impact of Suicide: The effect of suicide on various family members should be considered. The following may serve to heighten awareness. Children: The needs of children in a family where suicide occurs may be overlooked. A death in the family may be a very frightening and confusing event for the child. The natural impulse for the parents or careers of the young is to shield and protect them from the trauma. Parental reactions to the death have a definite impact on the child's reactions. At the core of helping children to cope is the need to include children in the grieving process, to be open and honest to the extent that they are able to comprehend, and to explore their knowledge and feelings on death and dying. Adolescents: Bereavement can be especially difficult for them at this time, as they are preoccupied by struggles with identity, independence and dependence. Also this is a time of stormy family relationships with parents and siblings, and so can intensify feelings of guilt or remorse. These will be further intensified in the case of suicide. Adolescents will feel particularly angry if excluded from the truth and may bitterly resent hearing the news of a suicide from people outside the family. Young peoples grief reactions can differ markedly from those of adults and often be misinterpreted. Behavioural response may be at either end of the scale from adopting a parent-like role not typical of their age group to adopting the opposite stance and “acting out” to gain attention and assurance. As an outlet for the release of tension adolescent males may exhibit such behaviours as aggression, anger, the testing of authority, and abuse of drugs and alcohol. Adolescent females in contrast, will often feel a longing for comfort and reassurance. Because of their developmental stage, adolescents are acutely aware that they have individual power over their own life or death, so they may be very frightened and challenged when confronted personally by a suicidal death. Once again, they need truth and an atmosphere where their fears can be openly explored. The suicide needs to be acknowledged, but equally, the fact that there is always other options must be clearly stated. Help is available. The elderly: The elderly, whether as grandparents or parents who have lost an adult child, will suffer profoundly. The spouse or partner of the adult child will usually receive the first line of condolences. The community may consider, because the child has grown up and living a separate life away from the parents, that the effect is lessened. This is not the case. A child regardless of age, will always be a part of the parent. To grandparents, the death of a grandchild imposes grief that is often two-fold, the acute pain they feel as parents for their son or daughter and also the intense grief for the loss of their grandchild.